TWENTY-FOUR ITEMS
[1]
On 21 August in Moscow City Court the trial took place of Ilya Glezer. He was charged with “‘the manufacture and dissemination of libellous letters and documents designed to undermine the Soviet State system” (CCE 24.10, CCE 25.10 [18]).
The judge was Bogdanov [1], the Procurator (prosecutor) Funtov and the court-appointed defence lawyer was Rausov (CCE 22.8 [12]).
The sentence was three years imprisonment and three years exile.
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I. T. Glezer is a Cand.Sc. (Biology) and the author of two books.
On 23 August 1972 the Moskovskaya Pravda daily newspaper published an article about Glezer, “Poison in an Envelope” [2]. It was signed by Yu. Babushkin, a pseudonym of Yury Vasilyevich Dmitriev, head of a department at the national daily Trud (Labour).
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[2]
RADYGIN
On 12 September 1972, after serving a 10-year term of imprisonment, Anatoly Vladimirovich RADYGIN [3] was discharged from Vladimir Prison. A Jew on his mother’s side, he is a Russian according to his passport (ID document).
Anatoly Radygin (1934-1984)
In his own words (chapter “Friends and Comrades”, Anatoly Marchenko’s My Testimony) Radygin says he graduated from the Leningrad Higher Nautical College. He became a naval officer, but somehow “left the forces” and he sailed in the Far East as captain of a fishing-boat.
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In 1962 Radygin published an anthology of poetry in Leningrad entitled The Salt of the Ocean. He directed a literary association at a factory, and was a member of a group committee attached to the Leningrad branch of the USSR Writers Union.
Radygin was arrested on 8 September 1962 during an attempt to cross to Turkey by sea. He was convicted of “intent to Betray the Motherland” (Article 64, RSFSR Criminal Code) and also of Anti-Soviet Agitation & Propaganda (Article 70).
At first he served his sentence in Camp 7 of Dubrovlag (Mordovian). In autumn 1965, together with Krivtsov and Niklus [4], Radygin was put in the punishment barrack (BUR, “intensified regime” barrack) for six months. Then he found himself in Camp 11.
In summer 1969, together with I. Terelli (?Josyp Terelya) and R. Semenyuk he was again transferred, this time to Vladimir Prison, on suspicion of organizing an escape tunnel.
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In autumn 1971, Radygin decided that after his release he would leave for Israel.
He tried to have his papers altered to contain the surname (Shulman) and the Jewish nationality of his mother. The prison administration refused his application, and he went on a three-week hunger strike — to no avail.
After release he was sent to live in Tarusa (Kaluga Region) under surveillance. He still intended to leave the USSR.
The journal Vestnik RSKhD (Paris-New York, 1971, No. 101-102), published “A Garland of Sonnets”, written by Radygin in Vladimir Prison .
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[3]
On 2 August 1972 the chemist Lev Kvachevsky was released.
He served a sentence of four years under Article 70 (RSFSR) [5]. Since May 1970 Kvachevsky was in Vladimir Prison. He has now been sent to Luga, a large town in the Leningrad Region.
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[4]
In July 1972 Stepan Zatikyan, a worker sentenced to four years for “Anti-Soviet Propaganda” was released from Vladimir Prison, where he had been since July 1970 [6].
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[5]
Valery Vudka (Article 70, RSFSR Criminal Code; three years), has been released from Vladimir Prison [7].
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[6]
Valentina Mashkova, Article 70, six years (CCE 15.8 [13]), has been released from the Mordovian camps.
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[7]
On 5 August Gilel Shur (CCE 15.6 [2], CCE 20.3, CCE 24.8) was released from a camp [8].
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[8]
On 12 August Boris Shilkrot (CCE 14.11 [6], CCE 17.14-2 [7], CCE 22.4 [2]) was released from Vladimir Prison. He has been sent to the town of Luga (pop. 31,905; 1970), Leningrad Region.
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[9]
In August Kishinyov residents A. Voloshin and I. Trakhtenberg were released from confinement [9].
They were sentenced over a year ago (CCE 20.3) to a two-year term in the case of the “nine Jews” charged with “stirring up emigrational attitudes, stealing an Era copying machine, and also intending together with the Leningraders [CCE 17.6] to participate in the hijacking of an aircraft”.
Other defendants at the same trial were Leningraders:
- D. Chernoglaz, five years;
- A. Goldfeld, four years;
- Gilel Shur, two years (see above, item 7).
Also convicted were A. Galperin, 2½ years; S. Levit, two years; Kh. Kizhner, two years; and D. Rabinovich, one year.
Approximately one month after their release from the camps Voloshin and Trakhtenberg received permission to leave for Israel.
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[10]
On 14 June Islam Karimov, deputy chairman of the Society for the Defence of the National Rights of the Meskhetian Turks (CCE 21.8, CCE 22.8 [9]) [10], was released from a camp in the Kaluga Region: Lyudinovo, penal institution 55/6.
Karimov was sentenced in January 1972 to eight months imprisonment under Article 198 (“Infringement of the ‘passport’ [identity document] regulations”).
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[11]
In August Alexander Rybakov (CCE 25.2) was in the Serbsky Institute in Moscow. He has been pronounced of unsound mind (diagnosis: schizophrenia).
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[12]
The investigation into the case of Kronid Arkadyevich LYUBARSKY (CCE 24.2) has been completed: the investigator is Kislykh.
The trial is to take place on 26 October in Noginsk, Moscow Region (CCE 28.4).
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[13]
On 26 August 1972, the Lithuanian priest Juozas Zdebskis [11] was freed from confinement.
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[14]
Vladimir Dremlyuga, who is serving a sentence in the Soviet Far East (Yakut ASSR) [12], was held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison from June until the beginning of September.
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UKRAINE (15-17)
[15]
The beginning of October 1972 saw the release, after 25 years of prison and camps, of Kateryna Mironovna ZARYTSKA (CCE 15.8 [1]).
Until 1947 she was the organizer of the Ukrainian Red Cross, a contributor to the paper Idea and Action, and a messenger for the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists).
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[16]
ANTI-SEMITIC RIOTS
In May 1972, a domestic quarrel between two neighbours in a workers’ district of Dnepropetrovsk (central Ukraine), Plastik, a Jew, and Maslov, a Ukrainian, led to large-scale riots of an anti-Semitic nature which continued for several days.
During the fight between Maslov, who was drunk, and Plastik, Maslov’s mother called the police. Three policemen pushed Maslov into his own room, where he threw himself out of a second-floor window. The shouts of his mother attracted a crowd.
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The police took away Plastik’s family to save them from reprisals.
In the old town cemetery, many tombstones on Jewish graves were destroyed. Only three days later were the disturbances brought to a halt. Party meetings were held in the town’s industrial enterprises, at which it was explained that the Jew had not thrown his neighbour out of the window.
At a meeting of the city’s Party activists Regional Communist Party Secretary A. F. Vatchenko laid the blame for events in the town on “foreign agents and Zionists” (see CCE 26 [13]).
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[17]
In September and October Valentyn Moroz (CCE 17.2, CCE 18.5 [8]) was in Kiev under interrogation in connexion with the case of Ivan Dziuba (CCE 24.10 [3], CCE 25.2).
He was then sent to Lvov for questioning in connexion with the case of Viacheslav Chornovil (CCE 24.3, CCE 26.15).
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[18]
DUDKO
MOSCOW. At the end of September 1972, the Orthodox priests Father Vsevolod Shpiller, incumbent of the Nikola Church on Novokuznetskaya Street, and Father Dmitry Dudko, a priest of the Church of Saint Nikolai of the Transfiguration, were “sent into retirement”, i.e., dismissed.
The KGB had long been bringing pressure to bear on the warden of the church where Dudko officiated, insisting on his dismissal. The warden refused to concur and was himself dismissed. The new warden promptly informed Dudko that he had been instructed to cancel his contract with him. He laid the blame on Father Dmitry’s “political utterances”. On 1 October the priest Dudko preached a sermon to his parishioners, asking them to help and defend him.
On 4 October a group of believers appealed to the Patriarch of All Russia, Pimen, in a letter protesting at the priest’s dismissal. Father Vsevolod, too, was retired for political reasons.
Both priests are well known for their pastoral activities amongst young believers [14].
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[19]
At the beginning of October Danylo Shumuk [15] arrived at his camp: Potma, Mordovian ASSR, post-box 385/1, 6th brigade.
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[20]
The London publishing house Macmillan has issued the first part of Pyotr Yakir’s autobiography, A Childhood in Prison. It is about 150 pages long and deals with his first years of confinement in Soviet prisons and camps [16].
The book vindicates a description of Yakir [17] by Vladimir Lapin (CCE 27.7 [3]):
“Right from his childhood this man, despite his convict’s fate, has retained an enthusiastic capacity to rejoice in things joyous.”
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[21]
One prominent aspect of the forcible expulsion from Kiev of Zhores Medvedev, during the International Congress of Gerontologists (CCE 26.10) was an attempt by foreign scientists to express solidarity with a colleague being persecuted by the authorities [18].
This has become known from notes by Medvedev (“The Problem of Ageing and the Problem of Democracy: Letters to a Friend”), which have appeared in samizdat. About five hundred participants in the Congress were ready to register their protests and boycott its sessions. On their behalf Professor L. Hayflick had a meeting with the chairman of the Soviet organizing committee, Professor D. F. Chebotaryov, who assured him that he knew nothing about the incident and promised to use his influence to prevent any possible persecution of Medvedev.
Anxious for the fate of his colleague and hoping to help him, Hayflick was satisfied with the assurances he had received and promised to refrain from making any public protests. It is clear, however, from Medvedev’s notes that the authorities’ actions were taken in complicity with Professor Chebotaryov.
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[22]
Last summer KGB officials took test-samples of the typefaces of all typewriters in the Leningrad branch of the Politizdat publishers and its subsidiary editorial offices.
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[23]
The Chronicle is reproducing the full text of a document which, in a legally vague form, virtually sanctions the tapping of telephone conversations:
Order No. 593 of the USSR Minister of Communications
Moscow
7 September 1972
Concerning an Addendum to Article 74 of the USSR Communications Statutes
By a Decree issued on 31 August 1972 (No. 655), the USSR Council of Ministers has added to this Article of the USSR Communications Statutes (ratified by Decree No. 316 of the USSR Council of Ministers issued on 27 May 1972; SP SSSR 1971, 110, [19] Article 83), after the first paragraph, a paragraph as follows:
“The use of the telephone communication system (inter-urban, municipal or rural) for purposes contrary to the interests of the State or to public order is prohibited.
“I hereby order:
“the heads of all chief administrations, departments and Offices of the USSR Ministry of Communications, and the Ministers of Communications of the Union Republics,
“the heads of industrial and technical departments of communications, managers of enterprises, establishments and organizations in the field of Communications under Union jurisdiction:
“a) to take cognizance of and comply with Decree No. 655 of the USSR Council of Ministers, issued on 31 August 1972;
“b) to ensure the insertion of the above-mentioned Addendum into Article 74 of the USSR Communications Statutes, which have been circulated to regional organizations under Order No. 420 of the USSR Ministry of Communications, 8 June 1971.
USSR Minister of Communications, N. Psurtsev
(11,230 copies)
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[24]
The Chronicle is continuing to publish the addresses of families, and the birthdays of children, of political prisoners.
[1] Nadezhda Pavlovna KIRSANOVA — Sverdlovsk P-116, 3 Komarova St., flat 8. Daughter Ira (b. 26 July 1962).
[2] Galina Ilynichna SALOVA (Lyubarskaya) – Moscow Region, Noginsk district, Chernogolovka, 26 Pervaya St., flat 35. Daughter Veronika (b. 3 October 1960.)
[3] Inna Ivanovna YURAVLYOVA (Dronova) – Moscow, 7 Dokukina St., flat 40. Son Dima (b. 26 July 1969).
[4] Galina Vasilyevna GAVRILOVA — Tallinn 28, 208 Soprusc Puiestee St., flat 163. Daughter Lyuba (b. 9 October 1968).
[5] Vilena Anatolyevna PIMENOVA – Komi ASSR, Syktyvkar, Krasny Zalon, 19 Kuznechnaya Street. Son Revolt (b. 20 August 1964).
These are, respectively, the wives, homes, and children of:
- Anatoly Reshetnik (CCE 25.1 [3]), 2. Kronid Lyubarsky [20], 3. Alexander Dronov (CCE 23.7 [10], CCE 25.10 [18]), 4. Gennady Gavrilov [21] and 5. Revolt Pimenov [22].
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NOTES
- Judge V.V. Bogdanov (see Name Index) presided over several other political trials before that of Ilya Glezer.
Between July 1970 and November 1971, he heard the cases of Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Olga Joffe (CCE 15); of Makarenko, Revolt Pimenov and Boris Vail (CCE 16); of Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov (CCE 20.7); of Mikheyev and de Perregaux (CCE 21.2); and of Nadezhda Yemelkina (CCE 23.2).
And he would continue to hear such cases for a number of years, a “special” judge for “special” cases, like his colleague Judge Lubentsova. At the end of 1980 he presided at the trial of Chronicle editor Alexander Lavut (CCE 60.2).
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On Procurator Funtov see CCE 28.4. Defence Attorney Rausov asked a court to sentence his client Roman Fin to internment in a prison-hospital (CCE 22.8 [12]).
↩︎ - A reply to “Poison in an Envelope” by 16 Moscow Jews dated 7 September 1972, and more details on the trial, were published in the News Bulletin on Soviet Jewry (NBSJ, No. 1, 1972) and in Reuters and UPI reports dated 9 September.
The article evokes the most sombre associations, wrote the authors of the reply, and its extreme language and crude Stalinist anti-Semitism raised serious concern.
↩︎ - On Radygin, see CCE 4.4, CCE 11.3, CCE 24.11 [5] and Name Index.
↩︎ - Radygin emigrated to Israel in summer 1973 and ultimately settled in the USA.
Both Radygin’s companions Krivtsov (CCE 11.15 [25]) and Niklus (CCE 13.10 [15] & CCE 15.1) were mentioned in Marchenko’s book, My Testimony (1966).
↩︎ - On Lev Kvachevsky, see CCE 4.7 [7], CCE 5.2; CCE 8.14 [6] and Name Index.
↩︎ - Stepan Zakityan (1946-1979) took part in the 1970 hunger strike in Mordovian camp 19 (CCE 15.7 [2]), as punishment for which he and three others were sent to Vladimir Prison. In November 1971 he was involved in another hunger strike (CCE 18.2, CCE 25.10 [2]), this time at the prison.
Seven years later, Zatikyan was one of those arrested, prosecuted and executed for the explosion on the Moscow Metro (CCE 52.1).
↩︎ - On Yury Vudka, see 1970 Ryazan Trial (CCE 12.4, CCE 14.7) and his time in Vladimir Prison (CCE 22.4 [1]).
↩︎ - CCE 24.8 mistakenly suggests that Shur’s 1971 letter had not been published. Brief extracts appeared in NBSJ No. 204, 1971, and the full Russian text was in the journal Sion (Tel-Aviv, No. 1, 1972).
On the brutal circumstance of Shur’s release, see an appeal by six Jewish prisoners to the United Nations (text in NBSJ, 3, p. 2), and on his harassment after release by the KGB (NBSJ, 2, p. 289).
In November 1972 Shur successfully left the USSR after paying 7,000 roubles in education tax, and in December he was one of the seven Israeli Jews to appeal “to all people of good will” to intensify their efforts on behalf of Jewish political prisoners in the USSR.
↩︎ - Just before their arrest, Voloshin and Trakhtenberg were two of the six signatories to the appeal to the UN described in the preceding note.
↩︎ - These issues describe Meskhetian affairs (see Contents, 1968-1982 [10] The Meskhetian movement) and the fate of their leader Enver Odabashev. CCE 19.6 records an earlier arrest of Karimov.
A rare discussion in the Soviet press of the Meskhetians, there described just as “Turks”, appeared recently in the News of the Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences (Izvestiya AN Kazakh SSR; Alma-Ata, 1972, No. 5).
An article by F. Fazoglu on “Special Features of the Speech of the Turkish Population in Kazakhstan” states that there are 79,000 Turks in the USSR (CCE 7.6‘s figure of 200,000 is probably nearer the mark), and that 92.3% of them consider Turkish their mother tongue. Their speech, writes Fazoglu, shows the influence of a lengthy period of Turkish-Georgian bilingualism in the past.
↩︎ - On Father Juozas Zdebskis, see CCE 21.9, CCE 22.8 [6], CCE 23.8 [1], CCE 24.6 and Name Index.
↩︎ - On Vladimir Dremlyuga, one of the 25 August 1968 Red Square protestors (CCE 3.3), see CCE 17.2 [8], CCE 20.11 [13], CCE 21.1 and Name Index.
↩︎ - “See CCE 26”, says this report and the Russian version online. Yet an earlier account of the Plastik-Maslov dispute was neither in the text of issue 26 received in the West nor, it seems, in the online Russian version (see https://hts.memo.ru/ –).
↩︎ - In the light of subsequent information, this report appears to be exaggerated. In late 1972 Shpiller and Dudko were reported still to be at their posts, despite pressure.
For Shpiller see Chapter 8 in Michael Bourdeaux, Patriarch and Prophets, London, 1969. Dudko was briefly arrested on 24 February 1966, for intending, with Grigorenko and others, to make an anti-Stalin demonstration (Possev 16, September 1966). See also the collection of Shpiller’s sermons in Vestnik RSKhD (Nos. 104-105, 1972).
↩︎ - On Danylo Shumuk, see CCE 24.3, CCE 25.2, CCE 26.15 and Name Index.
↩︎ - Yakir’s father, General Iona Yakir, was arrested and executed with many other high-ranking Red Army officers in 1937. Pyotr was then 14 years old.
Like other children and close relations of such “Enemies of the People”, Pyotr Yakir would spend the next 15 years in prisons and labour camps, at the front (during the war), or in exile. See his memoir, A Childhood in Prison (London: Macmillan, 1972; in Russian, 151 pp).
↩︎ - On Yakir, see CCE 19.12 [5], CCE 21.11 [4], CCE 24.12 [13], CCE 26.1 and Name Index.
↩︎ - At the beginning of September 1972, Zhores [Jaures] Medvedev circulated in samizdat an “Open Letter to the Soviet Finance Minister”. Would-be emigrants, he suggested, should be allowed to pay the new education tax with unredeemed State bonds that citizens were made to buy between 1928 and 1957.
On 15 January 1973, Medvedev arrived in Britain for a year’s research at London’s National Institute for Medical Research.
↩︎ - See 1971 Collection of Resolutions of the USSR Government (p. 110).
↩︎ - On Lyubarsky, see CCE 24.2 [2], CCE 25.2 [1], CCE 26.2 [1], CCE 27.2 [12] and Name Index.
↩︎ - On Gavrilov, see CCE 10.5, CCE 11.5, CCE 15.4 [1], CCE 22.4 [2], CCE 23.3, CCE 26.14 [5].
↩︎ - On Pimenov, see CCE 16.2, CCE 17.5, CCE 17.12 [18], CCE 18.10 [7], CCE 22.8 [24], CCE 23.7 [21], CCE 25.10 [21] and Name Index.
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A Chronicle of Current Events 